In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
For Jews and Armenians, two victories in the war on hate
When your vocation is dealing with prejudice, hatred and antisemitism you don’t win many battles. Yet this past week, there were two moments that allowed for momentary rejoicing. Interestingly, both dealt with words and reminded us of the enduring power of speech. First, Joe Biden became the first American president to recognize the Armenian Genocide….
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Opinion Say Israel is committing apartheid? It’s not a decision we reached lightly.
When I arrived in Jerusalem in 1989 as Human Rights Watch’s first Israel-Palestine researcher, I did not imagine the word “apartheid” applying to the Israeli and Palestinian context. But this week, HRW published a report that I edited, as the organization’s acting Middle East director, finding that Israeli officials are committing the crimes of apartheid…
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Opinion HRW report on Israel likely to cause more problems than it solves
Human Rights Watch, the world’s preeminent monitor of how governments treat people within their borders, has found that Israelis are guilty of apartheid. This is far more than a rhetorical charge, detailed over 213 pages in the language of a legal dossier. Long associated with white oppression of Blacks in South Africa apartheid is, in…
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Opinion ‘Love your neighbor as yourself:’ How Torah is helping me process Derek Chauvin’s conviction
The video of Rodney King’s beating by members of the Los Angeles Police Department emerged 30 years ago this March. It was one month before I joined the military. A year later, in April 1992, I was 22 years old and a military police person at Fort McClellan, Ala. I still remember the April morning…
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Opinion Canned beef with juices and other lessons from a year volunteering at the food pantry
This is an adaptation of Looking Forward, a weekly email from our editor-in-chief sent on Friday afternoons. Sign up here to get the Forward’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print. We generally show up late…
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Opinion Why won’t Israel acknowledge the Armenian Genocide?
There’s a report that Adolf Hitler once asked, “Who, after all speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” The veracity of that quote is unclear. But its popularity speaks to the uncertain place of the Armenian Genocide in the history of the 20th century’s ethnic cleansing movements — often sidelined, or conveniently forgotten about. History…
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Opinion Fighting antisemitism, and mass incarceration: Talking with Udi Ofer of the ACLU
One of my last memories from the pre-pandemic era is of meeting Udi Ofer, the head of the ACLU’s Justice Division, in February 2020. Ofer and Rabbi Julie Roth, director of the Princeton Hillel, gathered roughly a dozen students for a series of events reconsidering the Passover exodus in light of contemporary mass incarceration. Of…
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Opinion The IHRA antisemitism definition is supposed to protect people like me. It won’t.
“Fuck Israel!” yelled the man at the crosswalk. I’m very visibly an Orthodox Jew: I wear a kippah and sport a full beard. The man, who I’d never seen before, was looking straight at me. It was a sunny Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C. Thankfully, the light turned green, so I could quickly walk away….
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Opinion Herman Wouk and my father-in-law: a very Jewish friendship
Sometime in the 1980s, two middle-aged Jewish gentlemen met in the small Chabad synagogue in Palm Springs, California. One was American-born and clean-shaven. The other was a slim, more obviously Orthodox man with a moustache, a black hat, and the air and accent of an Eastern European Jew. In my imagination — I wasn’t present…
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Opinion ‘I’ve seen this all before:’ Without meaningful reform, I won’t celebrate Chauvin’s conviction
You will have to forgive me for not celebrating the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis last May. Of course I’m gratified by the three guilty verdicts meted out by the jury this week. But I know better than to breathe a sigh of relief until the judge…
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Opinion Want real police reform after the Chauvin trial? Start with how they’re trained.
If you’re hoping that Tuesday’s Derek Chauvin verdict will spark true reform in American policing, you may have been looking at the wrong trial. Not because the guilty verdict of the fired Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd last May doesn’t signal a sea change in the nation’s justice system. It does. And not…
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Sports First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
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Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
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Politics This politician refused to say ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ then blamed ‘political correctness’ for the backlash
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Culture We tried to fix Hallmark’s Hanukkah problem. Here’s the movie we made instead
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish יהודה גור-אריה און שירי שפּירא געווינען רובינליכט־פּריז פֿאַר ליטעראַטורYehuda Gur-Arye and Shiri Shapira win Rubinlicht Prize for Literature
די רובינליכט־פֿונדאַציע טיילט צו יערלעכע פּרעמיעס פֿאַר ליטעראַרישער און קולטורעלער טעטיקייט אויף ייִדיש און לטובֿת ייִדיש.
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Yiddish אַ בריוועלע דער מאַמען (אַ דערציילונג) A letter to my mother (story)
בעת אַ ייִדישער סאָלדאַט ליגט אין אַ סאָוועטישן מיליטערישן שפּיטאָל פֿאַרמעסט זיך זײַן מאַמע קעגן דעם ייִדישן הויפּט־דאָקטער
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Fast Forward 2 men found guilty in UK of plotting Islamic State-inspired antisemitic terror attack
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Fast Forward Self-appointed chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia says he was denied entry at border
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